How to Create Depth in Your Abstract Painting

There are many ways to create depth in your abstract paintings.

One of my favorite ways is to paint layer after layer after layer.

By the fourth or fifth layer there will be some parts of the original layer popping through.

It acts like a sweet and magical surprise. You didn’t expect to see it when you come up close to a painting.

That small amount of hot pink was hiding when you look at the painting from across the room but the closer you get the more interesting it gets and the more surprises you see.

Imagine that you’re walking in an art gallery to browse an artist’s show.

Once you enter, you see in the back room a painting that is calling out to you.

You love the color combinations of bright yellow around the edge with a greenish grey covering most of the yellow in the center of the painting but around the edge of the large canvas the yellow is compelling.

As you walk up to it, you begin to notice not just one color yellow but an interesting combination of different yellows that you couldn’t see when you first walked into the gallery.

Then, as you come even closer, to your surprise you also notice a combination of neutrals and greys that are similar in value so their subtlety didn’t show up from across the room…only when you got closer.

In my newest YouTube video, I’m going to demonstrate how I achieve depth and interest in my abstract paintings by sometimes beginning them in a very unexpected way, and that’s by using bright colors as the first layer.

You’ll watch me put on a second layer of neutral colors over the first layer of bright colors on a 12x12” canvas.

I purposely leave some of the edges of the bright colors showing just a little. After doing this on the entire painting you can see how much more depth it has using multiple layers of color.

After each layer dries, I continue to build up various color layers with lots of surprise parts peeking through in the final layer.

Each painting has a different number of layers. There isn’t a specific number that I keep building up with. It depends on the painting.

Some paintings have only five layers, and some may have ten or more.

You can watch “How to Give Your Abstract Painting Depth” on my YouTube channel.

Click HERE to watch. And if you haven’t already, please hit the Subscribe button and the bell so you’ll be notified every time I add a new video.

You don’t want to miss any of them.

Sending you a world of love,

Adele

* Click HERE to learn about the Art with Adele Academy.

* Click HERE to get my FREE minicourse, “Kickstart Your Abstract Painting.”